It Is Time For Sporting Ceremonies To Become More Family Friendly.

You’ve most likely heard about the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics and the controversies it created. We saw various sexual acts and innuendos and beheaded figures. In reality, it is extremely tiring to see this content.

The Olympics are supposed to be an event that lets current generations compete and inspires younger generations. With this simple thought in mind, it should make sense that the opening ceremonies should be family friendly. Clearly, it does not. It is absurd that I feel I would now need to watch the opening ceremonies ahead of time to ensure that it is something my family would be able to watch. What we saw at Paris was anything but that.

While there are many scenes that could be recounted, I’ll go to the one where three people are kissing and close the hotel door. There was absolutely no need for this scene. How does people kissing and closing the hotel door celebrate Sports? How does it celebrate France? It doesn’t. It celebrates sex. It doesn’t inspire future generations to join sports. It doesn’t inspire the current generation to be active or do their best in a sport. It’s a complete waste of air time and focuses on a subject that has nothing to do with Olympics.

I’d also like to discuss the scene where a bunch of headless Marie Antoinette’s sat in the window while Death Metal played and red streamers flew threw the air. Again, this has nothing to do with sports. It doesn’t inspire anyone to go pick up a sport. It also doesn’t really inspire anyone to learn about France, the host country in this case.

There are a variety of other examples of sexual acts by celebrities or performers, all of which is unwarranted and unnecessary.

Although I’m currently targeting the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony for the Olympics, I’d like to say that this feeling isn’t specific to them. Every Super Bowl Half-Time show is a cesspool of sexuality. Kids going there to watch a Football game are all of a sudden watching sexual dancing or other adult topics happen before them. Again, there is no need for this. It isn’t family-friendly, it isn’t inspiring.

Honestly, throwing sexual content into shows is just lazy. One could argue it simply means that the creative team or choreographers aren’t creative at all. You chose the easy route, the least-skilled route (kind of like zombies in a game/movie).

While I could go on and on, I’d rather end this thought with two final thoughts:

1. Stop including sexual content and other adult content in sporting events. Please, keep it clean for families.
2. Actually be creative with the time you’ve been given. Use the time that you’re given to showcase your country, your sport, your state, your city, your whatever, to teach people about the area. Or, use it to help inspire people to learn more about a sport or sports. Whatever way you use it, it shouldn’t have sex, it shouldn’t have gore, it shouldn’t have language. Those aren’t inspiring and they aren’t fruitful. You have an opportunity to do something amazing, inspiring, and unique, don’t waste it.